The Pilot
by KittyGonzales
Summary: A pre-series Wash/Zoe story.  I know there are a million other stories like it, but it's fun to write about.  Contains the origins of Wash's dinosaurs. Makes references to the episode "Out of Gas." Please review!
1. Chapter 1

Zoe didn't like the pilot, it was true, but at the moment, she could have kissed him.

The four of them had been eating dinner while Bester droned on about a "smoking hot chick from Osiris" and it seemed a question of whether Mal or Zoe would be the one to shut him up. To everyone's surprise, it was the pilot.

"Don't you have some mechanic things to be doing?"

Bester looked taken aback for a moment before replying "Don't you have some pilot things to be doing?"

They argued for a few minutes before settling into a stony silence, and Zoe remembered that she didn't like the pilot.

She wanted to like him, she really did. He was an excellent pilot, and Mal wasn't likely to get rid of him anytime soon, so she really tried to like him. She tried to at least figure out why she didn't like him.

He was childish, certainly. But he had been perfectly professional during the interview, and he had still bothered her. The mustache was definitely part of it. It seemed to attract the eyes, like something grotesque and alien that had landed miraculously on his face. There was more to it than that, she knew, but, she couldn't quite place it.

The pilot had been deterred by her coldness toward him, and, for the most part, given up on trying to get a conversation out of her, but he still attempted the occasional kind words her way. He did so now, but she was too distracted by the patch of dirty-blonde fur growing above his upper lip to hear what he said.

"Would you just shave the damn thing off?" she yelled. Everyone stared at her. There were a few moments of stunned silence followed by an outbreak of talking.

"So that's why you didn't want to hire him?" Mal said, half amused and half irritated.

"You didn't want to hire me?" Wash asked, looking hurt.

"So you don't like mustaches..." Bester said thoughtful, stroking his upper lip where he'd begun to grow one.

"...the best pilot in the 'verse, and you don't want to hire him because of a mustache?"

"I like my mustache!"

"Enough!" she shouted, silencing everyone. "It just bothers, me is all," she siad to Wash, before striding out of the room.

She slept badly that night. Whe she finally fell asleep after hours of simlpy laying in bed, she had a strange dream. The captain was dancing with the pilot, whose mustache was steadily growing bigger and bigger, while Bester was trying to get her to dance by bribing her with an orange. She had begun to tell him that she wouldn't dance with him for a hundred oranges, when suddenly there was the sound of a machine gun and they were all in Serenity Valley. Dark shapes were coming over the hill, and no one seemed to notice. Mal and the pilot (whose mustache now reached his knees) kept dancing, and Bester offered to throw in some grapes. One of the shapes seized the pilot and as she raised her gun to shoot it, something grabbed her from behind.

She awoke with a gasp and turned on the light. Nothing happened; the bulb must have burnt out. People on the core had heat-free ligts that could last millions of years, but they were stuck with fei oo that was old on Earth-that-was.

There were some candles in the drawer of her desk, and she tried to feel her way over there. She tripped on the chair and they both toppled over with a loud crash. She heard running footsteps above. Standing up, she fumbled in the drawer for a candle and the matches. She lit the candle just as the hatch opened and the pilot climbed into her room.

"Are you all right? I heard a noise," he said, looking worried.

"I'm fine, I just fell," She said, gesturing to the fallen chair.

"Oh," he said, and there were a few moments of awkward silence before he said "So, uh, what's with the candle?"

"Light went out, had to- _You shaved your mustache_!"

"Oh, yeah. I just thought…" he trailed off. "Um, what were we talking about?"

"The candle that's likely to burn me alive in my sleep."

"Oh, look on the bright side," He arranged his fingers in front of it so that the shape of a rabbit flared against the wall, then said in a squeaky voice, "It's very good for shadow puppets!"

Zoe laughed for the first time ever in front of the pilot. He smiled and continued, adding a shadow wolf to the cast. "'Arr, I do not like you, rabbit, for you have a mustache'" he said in a rough, evil voice, before reverting to the shrill tone for the bunny's reply. "'Well, that's- wait, how does a bunny have a mustache?' '…well, um… it's a shadow puppet show, not Shapespeare!'"

As she laughed, Zoe realized what it was that had bothered her. He was too _nice. _Ever since the war, all she thought of nice people was that they were the kind who would get killed early on, or else become the ones who simply sat there, empty, with a hollow look in their eyes. With him it was worse, because she knew that if he ever died, if he ever got hollow eyes, the world would have lost something precious, something purely innocent and good, and she didn't like to think of that.


	2. Chapter 2

As the weeks went on, Zoe grew to like the pilot more and more, and realized she couldn't call him "the pilot" forever. She approached the captain after dinner, embarrassed to find she didn't remember his name.

"What's the pilot's name?" she asked quietly, for he was in the room, clearing the table.

"God, I don't know. Wasn't it Hoban something?"

She decided it was worth a shot, and asked tentatively "Can I help you with that, Hoban?"

His head snapped up and he stared at her.

"Isn't that your name?" she asked, now very sure she'd gotten it wrong.

"Call me Wash. I love my parents and all, but really? _Hoban?"_

She laughed. "I'd probably change my name, too. Maybe not to a word that reminds me of washing dishes, but…"

"My last name's Washburne."

"Hoban Washburne…I suddenly feel like I have the best name in the 'verse."

* * *

><p>Zoe walked slowly through the empty ship, her breath echoing eerily in the suit. They'd come responding to a distress signal, but found the ship empty. There were no bodies, so she chose to believe that someone else had picked them up. Most of the valuables were gone, but they searched the ship anyway. In a small toy box that hung open, as if its owners had left in a rush, she saw small plastic animals that looked like mutant lizards. For some reason, they reminded her of Wash, and she wondered what he did in his free time. She imagined him alone in the bridge, perhaps attempting a few shadow puppets from the light of the console.<p>

"Do you think they're worth anything?" she asked Mal, holding up one of the toys.

"Children's toys? No one'd waste their money on toys that'd buy from us."

Zoe took a few of the toys anyway.

The first thing she did after they'd stored what little they had found away in the compartments in the cargo bay was go to the bridge to find Wash.

"I found these, and thought you might like them." She said, holding up one of the dinosaurs, "Figured you must get bored sitting in the bridge all day."

"Thank you!" he said, sounding extremely touched, "I don't have anything to give you…"

"I don't need anything! It was nothing, really."

"Okay" he said in a vague kind of way. Zoe thought of arguing, making sure he understood, but decided against it and quietly left the room.

* * *

><p>"This is about the dinosaurs, isn't it? Would you just forget it?" Zoe asked irritably<p>

"I just asked if you wanted to explore the town, what does that have to do with dinosaurs?" Wash replied. It was an innocent enough question, except that over the week since she'd given him the toys, he'd offered to give her everything from food to credits, all of which she declined. This being the first time they went planetside since he'd gotten them, she'd expected something of the sort.

"Look, are you coming or not?"

As much as she didn't want him to waste his money paying her back, the thought of wandering Greenleaf with Wash sounded too fun to pass up.

"Fine. Captain, we're going out!" she called behind her.

"If you see Bester, tell him to get his pi gu up here, I need this engine fixed!"

"Sure thing, Cap'n!" Wash said as they strode away towards town.

"So, where d'you want to go first?" he asked cheerily.

"I don't care, what about you?"

"I thought we could look at some of the shops." He said mischievously.

It was going to happen eventually, what was the point of arguing? "Fine," she sighed, "but I really don't need anything."

"Excellent!" he said, looking delighted.

As they strolled through town, Wash's eyes were fixed alternately on the windows of the stores and on Zoe, trying to see if she found anything interesting. She really didn't see anything she liked very much, but she was careful to keep her face unimpressed, just in case. At one point he stopped and looked longingly at a jade necklace, but it cost more than his cut for the last three jobs.

"I think the captain might make fun of you if you got a necklace," she said after he'd stared for a few minutes, and he tore himself away.

At one point, they passed a group of extremely intoxicated men outside a bar. One of the most drunk walked up to Zoe and said slurredly "Hey, beautiful."

As Zoe's hand curled into a fist, Wash laid a hand on her waist and said "Honey, is this man bothering you?" She'd never noticed it before, due mainly to the quirky grin and light-hearted banter, but Wash was big, and he could be intimidating if he wanted to. The man retreated, shooting Wash an evil look, which he reciprocated.

Once they had turned a corner, Wash drew his hand back quickly, saying "Sorry 'bout that. I figured beating up half a dozen drunks wouldn't entirely endear us to the general population."

She was a bit embarrassed to have been saved by the man who still played with dinosaurs, but she was thankful all the same.

A while later, they found Bester staggering around looking more drunk than the other men had.

"Bester!" Wash shouted when they saw him, "The captain says to get into the engine room ma shong, you stupid hwoon dahn!"

"Hey!" he said, a bit slurred.

"Just repeating what the captain said." Wash replied innocently.

Bester walked unsteadily away, grumbling.

"Funny, I don't remember the captain swearing quite that much."

"Couldn't resist!" he said with a grin.

* * *

><p>"Zoe, I'd like you to meet Kaylee, our new mechanic." Mal said, and the kind-looking brown-haired girl shook her hand, and they talked for a bit. She was extremely cheery, and Zoe thought there was already enough cheery on this boat, but she seemed nice enough, and anyone was better than Bester.<p>

"Well, as soon as Wash comes back, we can finally leave." Mal said.

"Where's Wash?" Zoe asked, even though she already knew.

"He's in town, said he needed to buy something."

"Ai Ya! He will not give up!"

She waited in the cargo bay for Wash, planning what to say to him when he finally came back. The doors opened, and she was about to tell him for the millionth time that he shouldn't waste his money, she didn't need anything, and this was just getting annoying, when she stopped dead at the sight of what he was holding.

A fruit basket, an actual fruit basket! Apples, strawberries, pears, oranges, grapes! It had been so long since she'd seen fruit, real fruit! It was possibly the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.

She took it off Wash, who was watching her anxiously, and kissed him. They both looked slightly surprised.

"Wow!" he gasped, "You must really like fruit!"

She gave a little laugh and nodded, though the truth was, she'd wanted to kiss him since the moment he'd made the shadow puppets. She just hadn't realized it until now.

* * *

><p>Zoe sat contentedly eating a plum, with Wash sitting across from her, looking at her strangely, when the captain and Kaylee came in, with Mal giving the tour.<p>

"And this is the dining area, next meal's in about-" he stopped, staring at the fruit in Zoe's hand. "Where did you get that?" he asked, amazed.

"Wash gave it to me, sir."

"And I don't get fruit?" he asked the pilot indignantly.

"She gave me Dinosaurs! If you got me a dinosaur, I would give you fruit."

The next time they went planetside, Mal and Kaylee went into town and came back with two plastic dinosaurs and expectant looks on their faces.


End file.
